Trevor Anderson , former Light Keeper at Race Rocks dies at 103

Obituary: Trevor Anderson: James Bay fixture was a lighthouse keeper, sailor and war veteran

It was in the late 1970s that Trev and Flo Anderson convinced us at Lester Pearson College that we should seek some form of protection for the unique ecosystems at Race  Rocks. It was as a result of their urging that we worked to get the Archipelago of islands at Race Rocks  designated as a provincial Ecological Reserve in 1980.


 Link to the Victoria Times Colonist article

For more than 15 years, Trev Anderson was a fixture in James Bay, sitting in his favourite chair on the front porch of his Niagara Street home in his signature black hat, waving, chatting and even blowing the odd passersby a kiss.

In return, Anderson, who died Monday at the age of 103, got to pet all the dogs in the neighbourhood and a chance to taste a sampling of brownies for his sweet tooth.

Those he greeted would have little idea of the colourful life the friendly senior had lived.

That life included narrowly escaping after his plane was shot down in the Second World War, becoming a lighthouse keeper in the early 1960s, and building a 55-foot sailboat to live on board for eight years — despite little knowledge of how to sail.

“My dad was vivacious up to the end — that’s just how he lived life,” said Adrianne Lowden, the youngest of Anderson’s four children with wife Flo (Florence), who died in 2017.

“He was as tough as nails but he also had an incredible sense of humour.”

Trevor Maxwell Anderson was born in Regina, Sask., on Oct. 22, 1920. His family moved to northern British Columbia when he was around six and he spent some of his teenage years in Shawnigan Lake, finally moving to Victoria in his late teens.

He enlisted in 1941, receiving training as a wireless operator and gunner. He was stationed in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Sicily, flying in B-25 bombers attached to the Royal Air Force.

When not operating the Morse code machine, he was responsible for two 50-calibre machine guns in the bomber’s belly.

His plane was shot down on his fourth mission, crash-landing in the Mediterranean Sea — there is a picture of the stricken plane, taken from another plane in the formation, on the wall of his James Bay home.

“Dad told me that the only way out was through a 10-inch [square] window — he remembered kicking it,” said Lowden.

She said that her father can’t recall how he managed to fit through the small opening, as he was wearing heavy gear to keep out the cold and an inflatable jacket as well.

All the crew survived the crash and scrambled onto a life raft. They were picked up by a fishing boat, but the engine died, delaying their return to dry land for three days.

The experience did not deter Anderson from returning to the air. He completed a total of 55 missions, with the usual number for gunners typically running 25 to 30.

It was during his tour of North Africa that he began to write to Flo, his future wife.

In one of the letters, he asked her to marry him — and she accepted. They married in 1944 and the two were together until Flo’s death.

He enlisted with the Air Force upon his return from North Africa, retiring in 1960.

The following year, with Flo and two boys and two girls in tow, he became a lighthouse keeper, initially on Lennard Island, on the southwest entrance to Templar Channel, north of Tofino.

The family became “rock ­hoppers” stationed at various lighthouses, including Green Island, 40 kilometres northwest of Prince Rupert, the ­northernmost lighthouse that was staffed.

In 1966, they were assigned to Race Rocks, where they remained until Anderson retired for the final time in 1982.

While he was on Race Rocks, he got the notion of building a sailboat, though he was a novice sailor.

It took the couple seven years to build a 55-foot ketch — a two-masted sailboat — which they christened WaWa.

They learned to sail, cruising the Gulf Islands and circumnavigating Vancouver Island before heading to the South Pacific in 1985.

“My parents gave us incredible lives,” said Lowden. “My siblings and I had the fortune to grow up fully and share the adventure.”

She said both her parents wrote books about their experiences. Her mother wrote an autobiography called Lighthouse Chronicles about the lighthouse years, while her father wrote The War and I about his wartime experiences, with both of them collaborating on All At Sea about their time on the water.

After their South Seas adventure, they returned to Victoria in 1987, living aboard WaWa for another eight years. After selling the boat, they jumped into a camper and travelled around North America until 1999, when they returned to Victoria.

The couple settled into the 1904 house on Niagara Street that Flo’s parents had originally bought in 1959.

That’s where Anderson would sit on the front porch and greet passerby from his favourite old armchair. Once he determined that the neighbourhood was safe and secure, he would retire for his afternoon nap.

“He was up and about until about two weeks ago,” said Lowden

Since his 100th birthday, Anderson’s children, Adrienne, Beth, Stan and Garry, have been putting up a banner on the front porch saying “TREV, Happy Birthday,” followed by his age.

This week, the birthday wishes were replaced with Bon Voyage as a send-off for a life well-lived.

parrais@timescolonist.com

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Trev Anderson , Former Lightkeeper at Race Rocks celebrates 103rd birthday

The Times Colonist reported this week the 103rd birthday of Trev Anderson, former lightkeeper at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve who lives in Victoria, BC.
https://www.timescolonist.com/celebrations/birthday-trevor-anderson-7703934

 

 

The following note was published here in 2020
https://racerocks.ca/the-origins-of-an-ecological-reserve-trev-anderson-turns-100/

Trevor Anderson and Garry Fletcher in the dining hall at Lester B. Pearson United World College: September 21, 1998

The Origins of an Ecological Reserve-Trev Anderson turns 100

Trevor Anderson at age 100

On October 22nd  we were invited to the 100th year  birthday party for Trevor Anderson, the light keeper at Race Rocks when it became an Ecological Reserve. Trev and Flo Anderson had arrived at Race Rocks with their family in 1966, and served at the station until they had built a boat and left to sail across the Pacific Ocean in 1982. They had been married for 70 years in 2014  and  Flo Anderson passed away in 1977.

  I first met the Andersons in 1976 and the students from Lester Pearson College in the Diving Marine Science and Biology programs started coming out to the Islands for field trips and SCUBA diving, with some even spending their project weeks studying and working at the islands. Students in the Diving and Sea Rescue Services at Pearson College developed a close relationship with these neighbours 5 km out at sea. After many of our dive sessions whenour students were invited into their home for tea and cookies, the students would talk excitedly about the incredible sea-life they were seeing at under water. In the late 1970s we started to visit Race Rocks more frequently and the Andersons invited students to stay on project weeks. 

Trev and Flo were the first to plant the seed of an idea urging us to see if we could get the government to do some formal recognition and protection of the Race Rocks Area.  What they could see at low tide alone was impressive enough, but if the underwater life also could be protected, that would be ideal.  In the years 1997 and 1998 we recorded the unique life underwater by logging dives from over 80 locations throughout the Race Rocks archipelago, and by February of 1979 a highly successful workshop took place, with officials invited from the Provincial Museum, the University of Victoria, and the Ministry of Parks who were all enthusiastic and supportive of our proposal.

Throughout that year we worked at the task of formalizing our proposal, presenting it to cabinet and lobbying to get action. Two students in diving and marine science, Johan Ashuvud from Sweden and Jens Jensen from Denmark were especially relentless in their pursuit of our goal. The proposal had to clear 11 agencies in the government bureaucracy and the cabinet before the Reserve could be proclaimed. These two students invited the Director of the Ecological reserves Branch Bristol Foster, and the Deputy Minister of Parks Tom Lee out to dive and then kept following it up with phone calls, even after hours! Their persistence finally paid off when after a year, the shortest time any reserve proposal has ever taken, the Minister of Parks was able to request Prince Charles on his visit to the college as international board president (April 1980) to make the formal announcement proclaiming Race Rocks the 97th Provincial Ecological Reserve.

The day we received the information that the reserve was proclaimed by the Ecological Reserves Branch of the Ministry of Lands Parks and Housing, The group of students who had worked so hard on the proposal went out to Race Rocks to give the news to Trev and Flo and present them with a very unofficial looking sign. 

 

The next week Trev and Flo asked the group of students who had worked so hard to establish the Ecological Reserve to come out to the island one afternoon where they presented the students with medals and “The Order of Race Rocks” as recognition and appreciation for their work in creating the Ecological reserve. 

 


Trev, Hans, Johan, Iina, Garry, Jens and Flo

 

FER Board member Garry Fletcher taught at Lester Pearson College from 1996 to 2004 and has been the ecological reserve warden for Race Rocks since 1980.

 

Trevor Anderson by Marianne Scott

Trevor aAnderson, Air Force Veteran, lighthouse keeper, offshore sailor. an article in Pacific Yachting magazine of December. 

See the pdf here: Anderson

 COASTAL CHARACTERS BY MARIANNE SCOTT

TREVOR ANDERSON

Air Force veteran, lighthouse keeper, offshore sailor

Only a few Second World War veterans remain with us today—Trevor Anderson is one of them. At age 99, he vividly recalls his war experiences, serving as a Morse code radio operator and doubling as gunner. “When the war broke out in 1939, I tried to enlist and finally made it in 1941,” he told me. He received his radio operator and gunner training in Calgary and Saskatchewan and eventually made it to England. “I was required to signal 16 words a minute in Morse code,” he recalls,“but it bumped up to 20 words in the UK. I’ve built a life-sized model Morse communication setup in the basement.”

After time in Scotland, he and 700 others boarded the SS Pasteur and spent two months sailing to the Cape of Good Hope, then to Aden.“Somebody goofed, ”Trevor says.“We were supposed to go to Burma but were dumped in Cairo.We had no notion we were going to North Africa.” He was attached to the British Royal Air Force with about 100 other Canadians, a few Australians and New Zealanders, but was scuttled all around the fighting between the Allies under Bernard Montgomery and the Germans under Erwin Rommel. “We moved continually,” he says.“It was a shemozzle.Tents, dust, sand, fleas and crickets. They assigned me to the American forces, who didn’t use Morse code. No keys in the planes to start with.Very insecure.” “The Americans wanted to fly at night,” he continued.“But their exhaust trails lit up like Vegas. So they changed their tactics.”

He spent 18 months in the desert, variously stationed in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and later, Sicily. Crouched in a small gun turret attached to the belly of American B-25 bombers, he handled two 50-calibre machine guns and the Morse code key.

On his fourth mission, January 2, 1943, his plane was hit and ditched in the Mediterranean while he signaled their location. Somehow, he escaped from the belly turret through a dinner plate-sized window and survived with six others in a dinghy for 30 hours.

Altogether, Trevor flew 55 missions— while the usual limit for gunners was 25-30 missions. During his 55th bombing run, an inexperienced colonel wanting flight pay missed the Italian target twice and then got lost. Trevor’s Morse code requests for help got them back to Sicily. The next morning, he visited the colonel. “Sir,” he said, “I’ve had enough.” (He tells me this story in his modest, understated way. Today, he’d be called a hero.) After flying to Cairo, he found the Canadians were clueless about what to do with him, but they released him from the combat area; Trevor went home to Victoria via West Africa, Brazil, Curacao, Miami and Ottawa.

WHILE IN NORTH Africa, Trevor, like all military men, thirsted for mail from home. Among the letter writers was Florence, aka Flo. “Our fathers were part of a small lending circle in Victoria and she wrote me regularly,” says Trevor, “mind you, it wasn’t romantic. But sometime during my desert sojourn, I asked her to marry me. She said yes.”

They married in 1944 after Flo finished her Victoria College studies; the marriage lasted 73 years. “When Hitler was defeated, we were released and every soldier was looking for work,” he recalled. “So after a few months, I went back into the Air Force and was posted in the Queen Charlotte Islands and Ottawa, teaching flight simulation for pilots.” Later, he and his growing family of two boys and two girls were stationed around Canada while Trevor flew all over the world in Dakotas and North Stars operating the radio while supplying the bases along the Alaska Highway and transporting dignitaries. He also served as radar fighter controller on several bases, retiring from the Air Force in 1960.

THE NEXT PHASES of Trevor’s life revolved around the sea. In 1961, he took the job of assistant lighthouse keeper and he, Flo and their four kids relocated to Lennard Island, near Tofino. Their government-issued home was on the verge of dereliction, cold and without running water. Electricity came on at night when the lighthouse operated and the Andersons turned night into day, with the children studying and Flo doing her household chores. In her autobiography Lighthouse Chronicles, Flo explained the senior keeper was a vicious drunk. Perhaps because Trevor had trained for lighthouse keeper duties, he’d become a threat to those without formal training; suddenly, the Department of Transport informed him he was fired. The noxious senior keeper had written a batch of letters reporting Trevor performed his duties badly.

Trevor journeyed to Victoria to protest his dismissal. After a lengthy investigation, he was reinstated, then promoted and appointed senior keeper at Barrett Rock. The family became rock hoppers, relocating to McInnes Island in Milbanke Sound, then to stormy Green Island, the northernmost-staffed lighthouse in Canada. They called it an “igloo” as the incessant tempests created rotund— and treacherous—ice pillows on the beaches. The Andersons lived through two ice-sprayed winters until July 1966, when they transferred to Race Rocks, which became a true home. They stayed 16 years.

Besides staffing the lights, the Andersons worked with Pearson College students and their marine biology teacher Garry Fletcher (featured in PY October 2019) to investigate the nine Race Rocks isles, their unique ecology, the surrounding high-current waters and various forms of alternative electricity production. They helped Garry to establish Race Rocks as an Ecological Reserve—areas set aside to preserve exceptional natural features. At some time, Trev and Flo decided they needed a sailboat and vowed to build one themselves, despite their lack of boatbuilding knowledge and skills. They spent much time pouring over Chappelle’s Boatbuilding and reading books penned by such sailors as the Hiscocks. They also met renowned boat designer Bill Garden. Over seven years, they built their 56-foot ketch (42 feet without bowsprit and davits), Wawa the Wayward Goose, launching her in 1982. “I knew I’d figure out all the intricacies eventually,” Trev says. “Bill Garden was enthralled.” They learned sailing by doing, first cruising the Gulf Islands, and then circumnavigating Vancouver Island. In July 1985, they headed offshore to Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Fanning Island and Pago Pago. After returning to Victoria in 1987, they continued to live on Wawa for another eight years before returning to life on solid land.

Flo died in  2017, at 93 years of age. Having had her companionship for nearly three-quarters of a century, Trevor misses her enormously. “Being alone is hard,” he says. He continues to live in the 100-plus year-old house in Victoria’s James Bay (Flo’s parents once owned it). Although he spent more than 20 years in military service, Canada denied him a pension, as “the service wasn’t continuous.” Consequently, he doesn’t have much use for Remembrance Days or other veteran recognitions.

How does one live until 99 and still be upright? “My philosophy of life is to take things as they come,” Trevor says. “Don’t do what you can’t do. I don’t think much about it, I’m just here. I’ve survived an airplane crash, a car crash and a mangled foot. I don’t drink, quit smoking more than 50 years ago. I just continue to live, day after day.”

Flo Anderson : In Memoriam

ANDERSON, Florence (Zita) Belle On March 30, 2017 Florence (Zita) Belle Anderson, quietly slipped away at home, while laying next to her beloved husband of seventy-three years, Trevor. Born December 30th, 1924 in Victoria at the family home on Midgard Ave., Flo went to Mount View high school and then onto Victoria College in the historic Craigdarroch Castle. She fondly remembered daydreaming about the formal dances held at the castle. After completion of her college exams, she married Trev (May 20th, 1944, Grace Lutheran Church) on his return from serving in the Canadian Airforce, World War II, North Africa. The newlyweds moved to Boundary Bay where they had their first son Garry. Back and forth across Canada four times, the Anderson family moved to different Airforce stations and radar bases adding Stan, Beth and Adrienne to the family along the way. After Trev left the Airforce in 1960, they lived at Miracle Beach for several years. Then the family moved on to their next adventure – twenty years on five West Coast Lighthouses. Flo’s ingenuity led her to achieve any task that she set her mind to and thrive in new situations. During their last seven years on the lighthouse, she and Trev took on a massive undertaking; building their fifty-six foot sailboat Wawa the Wayward Goose. They launched the two-masted ketch from Race Rocks, February 7th, 1982 and headed off for thirteen years of sailing trips. First they sailed locally amongst the Gulf Islands. Then they circumnavigated Vancouver Island. In July 1985, they headed offshore to Hawaii and onto New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Fanning Islands, Pago Pago, returning to Victoria July 1987. Florence had prepared herself by completing a Celestial Navigation course, getting her HAM radio license and joining the Blue Water Cruising Association. They sold Wawa in 1995 settling in Sidney and then in her parents last house in James Bay. Travel has always been a part of Flo’s life. On holidays away from the lighthouse, she and the family travelled on many road trips across North America and an excursion to Portugal and Spain. Flo’s artistic skills started early. She learned to sew, leather work, crochet, tat, spin wool, knit, quilt, draw and paint. While on the lighthouses she taught herself to oil paint and created realistically beautiful wave seascapes. At age seventy, she taught herself to use the computer, wrote a book (Lighthouse Chronicles), found a publisher and went on a book tour around BC. She is predeceased by her parents, Bert and Ida Drader (Victoria), her sisters Nellie Marshall (Niagara Falls, ON) and Eileen Odowichuk (Campbell River) and her brother Bill Drader (Edmonton, AB). She is survived by her husband Trev, sister Julia Guilbault (Victoria), her children Garry Anderson (Phyllis), Stan Anderson (Janet), Beth Cruise, Adrienne Lowden (Jeff); six grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild and two dear life-long friends Kay Johnson and Arlene Bryan We would like to send a heartfelt thank you to Flo’s Caregivers extraordinaire, Lesley, Joanne, Hughette, Michelle and Wendy. And a special thank you to Dr. Rosenberg and Associates for their compasionate and excellent care. There will be a Celebration of Life June 30th , 1:00 – 3:00 pm at 576 Niagara Street. Flo will be dearly missed by all

This Obituary was published in Victoria Times Colonist from Apr. 22 to Apr. 23, 2017
View the Enhanced Obituary

Trevor Anderson -a Visit to the Maritime Museum-2014

On May 22 I took Treo Anderson, former lightkeeper at Race Rocks to the BC Maritime Museum to see if we could find the artifacts he had donated back in the 1960s. The museum staff welcomed us and after an interview they recorded with Trev, they took us back into the storeroom to see if we could find the original Race Rocks Barometer. The telescope was displayed in a case so was easier to come across.

 

Trev was pleased that the artifacts he had rescued from disposal at Race Rocks still had safe storage at the BC Maritime Museum.

See the other posts on the Andersons

 

Trev and Flo Anderson’s 70th Wedding Anniversary

Congratulations from all of Lester Pearson College goes out to the first lightkeepers to welcome us to Race Rocks when the college opened in the 1970s.  They now live in Victoria and are both in their 90’s. Today Helen and Garry Fletcher attended the 70th wedding Anniversary of Trev and Flo Anderson in Victoria. Trev and Flo were the lightkeepers at Race Rocks from 1966-1982.

This link to Trev and Flo Anderson provides other posts
on their work at Race Rocks

Light Beacons on Great Race Rock Island

rrtowr

Originally in 1860, the light installed at Race Rocks was made up of a tall set of crystal prisms (said to be Lalique crystal from France), designed to carry the beam from an oil or gas-light far out to sea. We do not know why this complete cage was removed but you can see in these historic photos that it was replaced with the current cage sometime in the early 1900’s. An interesting adaptation of the Fresnel lens is noted in this article about using it to focus the suns energy in photovoltaic applications:

 

When walking over the cobble areas on the south side beaches at Race Rocks, we often turn up pieces of very thick glass. This one was found in April, 2006.This glass came from the Fresnel lens on the original light installed in 1860, seen here on the right in an artists drawing. When walking over the cobble areas on the south side beaches at Race Rocks, we often turn up pieces of very thick glass. This one was found in April, 2006.This glass came from the Fresnel lens on the original light installed in 1860, seen here on the right in an artists drawing.[/caption]

When walking over the cobble areas on the south side beaches at Race Rocks, we often turn up pieces of very thick glass. This one was found in April, 2006.This glass came from the Fresnel lens on the original light installed in 1860, seen here on the right in an artists drawing

In this report of John Langevin, 1872, The light is referrred to as a “second dioptric light.”The Doty burner was used in lighthouses till the end of the nineteenth century. Note this reference from the 1874 session of parliament where the expense of oil for lighthouses on the West Coast is referred to.

Trev Anderson, 2010–(When they arrived at Race Rocks) “All the equipment for the kerosene light was still there including tanks, pump, and 80mm mantles. The huge weight that was used to drive the clockworks was still connected. I believe the A/C power had just been installed at Race Rocks,  as with the station at Lennard Island , and they had turned on the electricity soon after we arrived in 1962. The weight with cable was still used at Lennard Island….(it had to be rewound every two hours…good thing I was ambidextrous) !”

From CCG reference: “These light stations used colza oil with the Argand burner until it was superseded by the introduction of mineral oils. Colza oil had been cheaper than whale oil, but mineral oil was cheaper than both and its use was extended after the development of a multiple wick burner, invented by a Frenchman, Captain Doty, for the consumption of hydro-carbon oils.”

You can get a live close-up look of the lucite-lens light beacon above currently operating at Race Rocks by going to the remote control camera 5 .

 

 

Click on this  slideshow , made on a foggy evening of July 1 2006. Images were taken from the remote camera 5.
GF Photos.

 

 

Trev and Flo Anderson visit Race Rocks

Trevor and Flo Anderson, lightkeepers at Race Rocks from July 28, 1966 until March 2, 1982 had a very pleasant visit at Race Rocks today. Trev and Flo provided endless stories of their 16 years here and certainly provided some historical tidbits for our benefit. Many, many things have changed on the Island since the Anderson’s time. Garry accompanied while Erik drove the boat.

Misery took his time in occupying the pathway as we were trying to get by.
There were 4 visitors to the island today.

Profile : Trev and Flo Anderson Connections with Pearson College 1976-1982

redtower-1When Trev and Flo Anderson arrived at Race Rocks with their family in 1966, the old generator building was painted red and had a tall tower attached for the foghorn. By the mid-1970’s when we started coming out from Pearson College, the buildings were painted white. In 1978, the last of the wooden structures of the generator room were torn down and the present square block concrete building was erected.


lamp76-1“When I first went over to Race Rocks in 1976, the light was made up of four 1000 watt bulbs, with one in the top position on at all times. When the bulb burnt out, it would automatically change positions with a new bulb. The light floated on a platform on a bath of mercury to reduce friction. Years later, Trev wonders how many light keepers were affected by the vapors given off from such mercury sources. In 1978, a beacon was installed that relied on more sophisticated electronics to send out a powerful beam . It wasn’t until after the Andersons left the station that the basin of mercury was replaced with a newer design with 8 beams. ( see lights file)

The book by Flo Anderson above is available from Harbour Publishing, P.O. Box 219 Madeira Park, B.C. V09-2H0
phone: 604-883-2730  fax: 604-883-9451 e-mail: harbour@sunshine.net  To order direct from the publisher, pre-payment is required by cheque or Credit Card. GST for purchases in Canada, postage extra, No duty or GST in purchases from the US.  Cost is $18.95(CAN)

38Link for this  profile of Flo Anderson:

Flo Anderson was born in Victoria, B.C. She and her husband Trevor and their four children lived at five different B.C. lighthouse stations from 1961 to 1982. In December of 1961, her family left Vancouver to start life anew at the light station on Lennard Island, near Tofino. There wasn't a furnace. She used an old wood stove for heat and cooking, collecting driftwood for burning. She didn't meet anyone else on the island for weeks. "Writing about Lennard Island was very painful for me," she told interviewer Marianne Scott, "Life was traumatic. I was so naive. Recounting it all was therapy. Lots of people have this romantic view of living at a lighthouse. That's why I wrote about it." In 1963, Trevor Anderson became senior keeper at Barrett Rock, seven miles beyond Prince Rupert. Four months later they were sent to McInnes Island in Millbanke Sound, between Prince Rupert and Vancouver Island. Fourteen months later, they were relocated to northernmost staffed lighthouse in Canada, Green Island. In July of 1966 they were transferred to the southernmost point on the Canadian Pacific, Race Rocks, where they spent 16 years. As of 1974, they spent seven years building a yacht in whatever spare time they could find. "All the wives were part-time lighthouse keepers," she has recalled. "Unpaid, of course. It was just expected. When the man was away, the wife filled the gap." Trevor Anderson took early retirement in 1982, the year they launched their 44-foot wooden ketch, WaWa the Wayward Goose, circumnavigating Vancouver Island in 1983. For thirteen years they lived about their boat, once sailing as far as the South Pacific and New Zealand. Flo and Trevor Anderson came ashore in 1995 and now live in Sidney, B.C. At age 70 she wrote Lighthouse Chronicles: Twenty Years on the B.C. Lights (Harbour Publishing), published in 1988.

[BCBW 2003]


Flo Anderson’s The Lighthouse Chronicles (Harbour $18.95) explores her life as a lighthouse keeper on isolated areas of the B.C. coast. 1-55017-181-X

[BCBW WINTER 1998]

lightbw78-1

Photo by Trev and Flo Anderson

trevandflowvideoTrev and Flo return to Race Rocks for a visit and an
interview with ChekTV in the mid
1990’s 

 

 

Igftrevandflo050811t was in 1978 that Trev and Flo Anderson started encouraging students and faculty from Pearson College to seek some kind of protection for underwater Race Rocks. The result was the creation of the Race Rocks Ecological reserve. 33 years later, on August 5, 2011, now retired and living in Victoria, they returned to see the results of the efforts.
Adam Harding’s comment in the daily log tells about it.
“Trevor and Flo Anderson, lightkeepers at Race Rocks from July 28, 1966 until March 2, 1982 had a very pleasant visit at Race Rocks today. Trev and Flo provided endless stories of their 16 years here and certainly provided some historical tidbits for our benefit. Many, many things have changed on the Island since the Anderson’s time. Garry accompanied while Erik drove the boat.”

In 2014 Trev and Flo celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. At that time they still lived in Victoria BC.

Flo Anderson passed away in 1997..https://www.racerocks.ca/flo-anderson-in-memoriam/ 

Trev celebrated his 100th birthday on October 22 , 2020

Trev had indicated that he had donated several artifacts from Race Rocks to the BC Maritime museum so we went in search of those items on May 22, 2014:


Article in Pacific Yachting magazine by Marianne Scott on Trevor Anderson 2019